Fix Your Slice
Subscribe now to watch the full video.
Players fighting a pull or slice usually assume the cause is a steep transition or a lack of arm shallowing. However, I have seen several students who transition properly, but still struggle with these ball flights. In these cases, what we typically see is an overactive right arm or "flip" through the hitting area. This produces the excessive leftward path responsible for a pull or slice, depending on the orientation of the face, and is purely a release problem. To work on this pattern, players can place a pool noodle slightly outside their lead leg, but just inside the shaft of the club at address. You can then make some low momentum 9 to 3 swings and note whether or not you are making contact with the noodle. If you are struggling and are afraid to progress to half or full shots, you will want to focus on maintaining the extension of the right wrist and flexion in the left, while making sure to continue rotating through the release and into the finish. Combining good body rotation with soft arms and the correct wrist movements will allow for the clubhead to stay outside your hands and will produce a very neutral path. This should clean-up any contact issues as well. Ultimately, it is when the right arm takes over and the body stalls that the handle moves out, the club moves in, and the two-way miss comes into play, so be sure to pay attention to the proper combination of body and wrist movements.
Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Release, Drill, Intermediate
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
This is training hands-in club out with a pool noodle.
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:11,000
So many golfers who slice the ball or pull the ball tend to have a very left-ward release
00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:12,000
pattern.
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000
So, oftentimes they'll say they can feel that they're getting really steep and they
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:18,000
will describe that they're getting on top of it.
00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:24,000
But if we look at it from the down-the-line camera, oftentimes at this checkpoint, the
00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:26,000
club is just inside the hand.
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:32,000
So it's not in the outward direction, which means that the left-ward path is happening
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,000
all from there down to the golf ball.
00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:36,000
So it's only a release problem.
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,000
It's not really a transition problem.
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:44,000
So what's usually happening is they're in an okay position there and then the grip
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:51,000
freezes and the hand releases or the right arm releases more like this and then it gets
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000
really underneath like so.
00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:59,000
So a checkpoint in the follow-through is that the hands are just or the club is just slightly
00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:03,000
outside the hands from a down-the-line target view.
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:08,000
So if I swing my hands out to the right, that doesn't help me get the club out to the
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:09,000
right.
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:13,000
What helps me get the club out to the right is having more of a soft rotation in the
00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:18,000
arms while keeping the extension of the wrists as long as possible.
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:24,000
So basically coming through more like that, as opposed to coming through the ball, more
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:25,000
with a flip like that.
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:30,000
You can see that when I flip that gets the club swinging way to the left.
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,000
When I hold it the extension of the wrist or the flexion of the leader's, that keeps it
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:37,000
going more out to the right.
00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:43,000
If I then accompany that with body rotation, I can get the handle to go to the left and
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:45,000
the club to stay out to the right.
00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:54,000
It gives me a very soft shallow ground contact and ultimately gives me a very repeatable
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:55,000
penetrating ball flight.
00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:00,000
So if you are struggling with more of this outside-in release, here's how you set up the
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:01,000
station.
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:09,000
So I've got roughly in line with that flag and I put the pool noodle roughly in line with
00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:14,000
my knees or a little bit outside of my knees so that if I had the club shaft, it's
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:19,000
just inside, but it's not too far out away.
00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:27,000
So I'm bringing it relatively close to my legs just to make sure that if I scoop more
00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,000
like this, I'm going to catch it.
00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:32,000
I can always check with a down-the-line camera.
00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:40,000
If the club is exiting well under my hands like this and it doesn't hit it, then it might
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,000
not be in the right spot.
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:49,000
So again you'll see even if I come into a decent position here, if I release it
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:55,000
more like this, I'm going to make contact with the tripod or with the foam noodle.
00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,000
Hopefully look something like that and there I hit my pole if I left the face open,
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,000
I would have sliced it.
00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:13,000
If on the other hand, I get into roughly that same position here and then I maintain
00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:16,000
the extension of my wrist.
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:18,000
Keep turning my body through.
00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:21,000
You'll see the club finish more a little bit out to the right.
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:28,000
Once I've got a feeling doing it in more slow motion shots, then I can move up to three
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,000
quarter swings and ultimately full shots.
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:35,000
Kinda more like that.